“They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.” (Psalm 82:5-7)

I read Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol last week. I should have known better – Dan Brown was the guy who brought us the DaVinci Code. The DaVinci Code, if you remember, was the fast paced, action filled novel in which Brown tries to convince us that Jesus really didn’t die on the cross and later married Mary Magdalene and produced offspring whose lineage may be around today.

Uh-huh.

According to Dan, Jesus didn’t die on the cross; therefore mankind’s sin debt wasn’t paid. If he didn’t die then he didn’t rise from the grave – no resurrection. And if he didn’t die and wasn’t resurrected and later got married and had children, then he’s not really God.

Wonderful philosophy. Thanks Dan.

The DaVinci Code tried to make God into man. Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol does its best to make men into gods. To convince us that we’re really gods Dan quotes three words from the Bible, ‘ye are gods.’ He also throws in the Torah (isn’t that part of the Bible?), the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao and whatever other ‘scriptures’ he can come up with as proof that they and the ‘prophets’ (Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha and Tom Cruise) all came to share the same message with mankind; ‘ye are gods’.

I’ve got to surrender the point to Dan; those three words are in the Bible – right after “They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken” and right before “But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler.” Dan fails to work the full context into the book – besides it would kinda ruin his thesis: “We have the power to become gods within us, all we gotta do try … or become Masons.

I’ve also got to admit that Dan writes a pretty fast moving, action packed story. That’s what hooked me; I’m a sucker for action. Other than being fundamentally wrong, the problem with The Lost Symbol is that the bad guy is dispatched and all the action is over by page 460 … the book doesn’t end until page 509. Dan fills the last 49 pages trying to back up his thesis, ‘ye are gods’ with a gobblety-gook philosophy built on a foundation with all the firmness of a fresh cow patty on a warm summer day (*Hint to Dan: stick with the fast moving action; it works for you.)

It took me the better part of a day to get through The Lost Symbol. It’s a day I won’t get back … forgive me Lord. My recommendation: save yourself twelve hours and thirty-bucks.

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When I was a kid I heard what the Bible said the world would be like in the last days and I wondered at how such things could practically come to be. The thirteenth chapter of Revelation predicted that, in the last days, ‘the earth and its inhabitants would worship the beast’ and that everyone would receive a mark and only with this mark could anyone buy or sell anything. I couldn’t imagine all of the earth worshiping a single ‘beast’ or the entire world buying and selling only enabled by a mark which the ‘beast’ gave them.

What I couldn’t imagine was believers falling for something like this. Surely the requirement of a single world religion (all men worshiping the same ‘beast’) and a single world economic system requiring a ‘mark’ given to each person by the ‘beast’ would take years to set up and the cooperation of every nation and religion on earth. Not only would Christians see through this and rebel, free people from every corner of the earth would rise up against the idea of the world’s religions and economies being controlled by a single ‘beast’. I just couldn’t see how we could all roll over and allow something like this to happen, especially when the Bible had already warned us against it.

A lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since the day I first learned about the prophecies of the ‘beast’. What was impossible has become possible. It’s happening before our eyes and, yes, we’re rolling right over – not only allowing it to happen, but joining right in.

Thirty years ago I couldn’t imagine an economic system in which an individual wouldn’t be allowed to buy or sell anything unless they carried a ‘mark’ on their hand and forehead. But that was before Debit Cards and Electronic Funds Transfer. When was the last time you paid cash (currency, not a debit card, credit card or check) for a major appliance? When was the last time you paid cash at the grocery store instead of sliding your debit card through the machine and punching in your PIN? Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that writing a check is any closer to cash than a debit card. The cashier inserts your check into a slot in the register which reads the magnetic coding and withdraws the money from your account at that moment. No different than a debit card.

We are well on the way to getting rid of cash altogether – it’s dirty, it cost money to print money, it’s hard to track, and trading all those different currencies of all those different countries slows down the global economy. Yep, cashless is cleaner, neater, and more efficient – all anyone needs is a number in the system and a PIN code – a ‘mark’, if you would; one on your hand (or in your hand) and one on your forehead (or in your memory … and in the database memory).

Well, I guess that part of the prophecy has already come true.

But what about everyone on earth bowing down to worship the ‘beast’? The world’s Christians would never stand for it! Other religions, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and the rest would refuse to bow their collective knees to a single entity. Surely the idea of a single world religion is practically impossible.

Sorry … we’re headed there too. We don’t mention the words ‘Christian’, ‘Jew’, ‘Moslem’, ‘Hindu’ or ‘Buddhist’ much in public anymore; it’s just not politically correct. ‘Faith Based Community’ is a much easier term. It’s more homogeneous – not so ‘in-your-face’ as those stark declarations of an exclusive belief system.

And as for those few who can’t accept that all religions are of the same value and truth – for those who stubbornly cling to a single belief systems as ‘the truth’ – we call those folks ‘Fundamentalists’. And as for those who actually live out the tenets of their faith without regard to society’s accepted common practice? Those folks are what we call ‘Extremists’.

And everyone knows (as the media has so aptly indoctrinated us) that ‘Fundamentalists’ are whackos and ‘Extremists’ are dangerous. It doesn’t matter that some groups demonstrate their ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘extremism’ by detonating suicide bombs and others by refusing to call good what God says is evil. Throw ‘em all in the same pot – once we get rid of all the ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘extremists’ the world will be safe for all of us who have no clue what to believe. We’ll be free to believe whatever Channel 2 or Dan Brown tells us – it won’t matter what we believe as long as we do as we’re told and don’t take any of it too seriously.

In order for the prophecies in Revelation 13 to come true, all the world needs to do is to replace freedom and truth with control and deceit. For better or worse, we’re well on our way to accomplishing that goal. And if you’re not completely deceived yet – if truth still looks like truth and lies still look like lies – just keep reading Dan Brown’s books, you’ll get there.

“Jesus answered: ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:4)

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Next week we’ll talk about where Dan Brown may have gotten his ideas (theyre not so new) and what the Bible really means when it states ‘ye are gods’.